BOSTON — This is an official press release from the U.S. Department of Justice (USAO - Massachusetts), published as received.
BOSTON – A Louisiana woman has been charged and has agreed to plead guilty to her alleged involvement in a multi-state scheme to obtain millions of dollars in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds for herself and others by submitting fraudulent applications to PPP lenders.
Lisa Lemoine, 38, of Bossier City, La., was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. A plea hearing has not yet been scheduled by the Court.
According to the charging document, Lemoine allegedly conspired with Sniders Jean-Jacques, Lorne Johnson, Tanya Pierre, Ashley Spike and others to submit fraudulent PPP applications on behalf of borrowers and to collect up to 30 percent of the loan proceeds as a fee for securing the loans. Beginning in March 2021, Lemoine and others allegedly recruited borrowers who were ineligible for PPP loans, claimed the borrowers operated businesses that qualified them for loans and created fake tax forms to backstop the borrowers’ fraudulent applications. As a result, Lemoine and others allegedly obtained PPP funds to which she and the borrowers were not entitled. The indictment also alleged that the borrowers who received PPP funds based on these fraudulent applications paid kickbacks to Lemoine and others, commonly in an amount equal to 30 percent of the loan proceeds.
Jean-Jacques, Johnson, Pierre and Spike were charged in a separate indictment with conspiracy to commit wire fraud related to this scheme.
The charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud provides for a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000, or twice the gross gain or loss from the scheme, whichever is greater. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case.
United States Attorney Leah B. Foley; Thomas Demeo, Special Agent in Charge of Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation, Boston Field Office; Amaleka McCall-Brathwaite, Special Agent in Charge of the Small Business Administration, Office of Inspector General, Eastern Region; and Randy Maloney, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Secret Service, Boston Field Office made the announcement today. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristen Kearney of the Securities, Financial & Cyber Fraud Unit is prosecuting the case.
On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to marshal the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with agencies across government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud. The Task Force bolsters efforts to investigate and prosecute the most culpable domestic and international criminal actors and assists agencies tasked with administering relief programs to prevent fraud by, among other methods, augmenting and incorporating existing coordination mechanisms, identifying resources and techniques to uncover fraudulent actors and their schemes, and sharing and harnessing information and insights gained from prior enforcement efforts. For more information on the Department’s response to the pandemic, please visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus.
Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at: https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.
The details contained in the charging document are allegations. The defendants are presumed to be innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in the court of law.
